Table of Contents
Importance of Social Media in Modern Days
Social media is like standing in the middle of the room and yelling ‘I LIKE PIZZA!’ and one person yelling back ‘I LIKE THAT TOO.’ This is an example of what most of the people use Social media for. Before we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of social media, we need to understand what social media is. Social media is defined as websites and applications that facilitate users to create and share information, ideas, or to participate in social networking. Social media is used for several reasons such as business marketing, communication, posting pictures and videos, and building relationships.
“Adult Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 frequent social networking sites more than any other age group, followed closely by teenage Internet users between the ages of 12 and 17” (Parks). Young adult and teenage internet users are most active on social media day-to-day basis. “92 percent of teens report going online daily, making them the most active social media participant,” (Black).
Teenagers nowadays are constantly active on social media, and have developed a growing dependence on it. Numerous teenagers grow addiction to social media partly because they do not understand the negative effects it has on their life. Teenagers are correct in thinking that social media has many advantages, however, they do not realize the adverse effects can also ravage their life. These adverse effects include: cyberbullying, loss of real-life interaction, and depression.
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Lit Review
Networking in Past to present It is essential to look at the history of Social media before talking about the problems that social media causes. The history of social media started in 1990’s. The first social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997 by Andrew Weinreich. The first blogging sites became popular in 1999, which created a social media furor that’s still popular today. (Hendricks). The idea of networking online became prevailing when Six degrees and blogging sites were created. Six Degrees lasted four years and 3.5 million people created accounts during those four years (Riese).
After people were introduced to Social media in 1990s, sites like MySpace were prominent in the early 2000s, and sites like Photobucket and Flickr facilitated online photo sharing. Different types of social media sites were created with different features making communication easier and enjoyable. Whenever someone says “Social media,” Facebook is the first site that people think about.
Facebook was published in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Since then, Facebook’s developers added many new features like posting videos and photos, Likes, Private messaging on messenger, gaming, events, and many more making communication easier and amusing. A video platform,YouTube ,was published in 2005, which made an entirely new way for people to share and communicate. YouTube’s developers have added and improved many features and functionality, including a rating system on videos for public, video replies, comments, ever improving quality, and capability like 360-degree video.
Youtube is still very popular and one of the most entertaining site for people. By 2006, Sites like Facebook and Twitter became the most popular Social media sites on the internet (Hendricks). The most popular image-sharing site, Instagram, was launched in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The initial purpose of this site was to let users upload, edit, filter, and share photos. Afterwards the developers of Instagram added video uploading, hashtags, web feed, DMs, commenting, private texting, online advertising, and many other features. A “visual-discovery tool,” Pinterest, was also launched in 2010.
It allows users to upload, save, and manage images. Users can also scroll through their friend’s feed. One of the most popular and most used ephemeral photo sharing site, Snapchat, was published in 2011 as “Pictaboo.” Some features Snapchat added were snapchat stories, Snapchat discover, and many other features to make it entertaining, specially for teenagers. By June 2016, Snapchat had 150 million daily active users (Riese). An another video platform, Vine, was developed to post six-second video, which was published in 2013.
Teenagers are majority of the users on this app. Vine grew in popularity due to the relevant pop culture references created throughout the app. This engaged many teens worldwide. Today, there is an enormous variety of social networking sites, and most of them are linked to cross-posting. Social media has created an environment that has made communication more convenient for just about everyone. The person to person intimacy is still there, it is just not face to face. Social media has just recently planted its seed in this technologically advanced world. Who knows what it will blossom into within the next few decades.
Adverse effects of Social media
The use of Social media has many adverse effects that can ravage teenagers’ life. Teenagers are correct in thinking that Social media has many advantages, however, they do not understand the adverse effects can also ravage their life. These adverse effects include: cyberbullying, loss of real-life interaction and depression. In this day and age, bullying has extended to numerous social media platforms. The use of electronic communication to bully a person is known as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a dangerous issue that so many people have become victims of it.
Bullying online may seem less harmful than physical bullying, but it is equally damaging to a person online, as it is physically. A study conducted by University of California psychologists reported that 3 out of 4 teenagers become victim to cyberbullying (Wolpert). Picture an average high school classroom of 32 teenagers. By the results of this study, it would mean that 24 of the 32 students have been victims of cyberbullying–simply because of their desire to make new friends or forge new bonds. Another study conducted by Pew research reported that over 39 percent of teens on social media network have been cyberbullied in some way (Ramasubbu). Putting this on a nationwide scale, this number would project to literally hundreds of thousands of teenagers that have been victimized by cyberbullying.
This leads to the development of depression. Depression can lead to anxiety, suicidal thoughts, self-harm predilections, etc. “Victims of cyberbullying often succumb to anxiety, depression, and other stress-related conditions” (Gordon). Cyber Bullies get a laugh or enjoyment off of the pain of others, but they do not realize the true effects their actions have on the victim. Their behavior causes the victim into developing depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc. Victims of cyberbullying often find it difficult to feel safe. Typically, this is because cyberbullying can invade their privacy through a computer or cell phone at any time (Gordon).
The violation of their privacy causes the victims to feel more afraid than they already are. This may cause them to disconnect from other people, and feel more lonely. The best way to decrease the rate of cyberbullying is by limiting the use of Social media and using it for the right reason. Social media can also affect human interaction, decrease face to face communication and it can make teenagers less social in the real world. Social media addiction is creating a lack of face to face interaction and social life in the real world with families and friends.
“That negative cycle begins when you spend long periods of time on social media, time taken away from other activities that might encourage better emotional health, like exercising, meeting up with friends, and engaging in other activities that provide pleasure” (Theobald). People lose their attachment with family because of their addiction to social media. They spend more time using social media than engaging in physical activities, which increases laziness and health issues. Sigman studies reported that you lose communication among family members and friends if you use a lot of social media (Parks).
Teenagers become less social in the real world and become more social in the world where everyone is trying to look “cool.” The lost of human interaction and becoming less social is harmful to teenagers. The lost of face to face interaction with family and friends can lead to depression and loneliness (Parks). Teenagers’s dependence on social media causes them to lose connection with their family, which eventually develops feelings of loneliness.
Teenagers do not get different experiences in the real world and they do not learn anything about the real world, which makes them less social. Limited human interaction can lead to poor quality of life and diminish physical and psychological health (Parks). People develop laziness by sitting at home and using social media the whole day. They become physically unhealthy because of the laziness they develop from social media. They do not go out in the real world to become more active and social. Furthermore, social media can also lead to depression, loneliness and eventually it can also lead to suicidal behavior.
As mentioned before, many people develop depression and it leads to people suiciding or hurting themselves. According to SIGCHI conference, social media users who are addicted to it are more likely to feel alone and isolated (Theobald). Addiction of social media and cyberbullying are some reasons of why people feel isolated and loneliness. Many people who are addicted to the internet suffer from emotional problems as depression and anxiety-related disorders (Parks). Teenagers suffer from emotional problems because of cyberbullying, their relationships ending, etc., on social media.
Depression and loneliness can also lead to behaviours that are harmful themselves. Social media went from a place where teenagers could chat and connect with one another to a place in which teenagers are constantly being harassed and bullied, which leads to depression. One study reported that teenagers who had social media addiction were 2.4 times more likely than non-addicted teens to have engaged in self-injurious behavior (Parks). This shows how people hurt themselves because of what other people did to then on Social media.
Teenagers that are constantly tormented by other people through Social media often begin to feel hopeless. They may even begin to feel like the only way to escape the pain is through suicide or harming themselves (Gordon). Some social media users develop depression because of the tormentation by their peers, causing them to start feeling hopeless, which in turn causes them to injure themselves.
On the other hand, many people might not agree that Social media is harmful to them. There are also some advantages of using social media for teenagers. One of the advantage of using Social media is that it makes it easier to build new relationships and communicate with Friends. “The rise of social media has granted more opportunities to meet new people and begin relationship” (Black et al.).
People can increase their relationship on social media. People become more connected on social media. Teenagers can create group chats on social media and communicate as a group, which increases their bond with each other. Teenagers can find their school friends and start communicating with them. They can also start new relationships on social media. It is easier to communicate with friends online, but it is better to communicate with them face-to-face. “A study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior in 2011 tested the impact of both face-to-face and computer-mediated social support.
While both types of support were found to be beneficial, face-to-face support showed a greater impact on buffering life’s disruptions” (Theobald). Communicating online and face-to-face are beneficial in some way, but the study above shows that face-to-face interaction is more beneficial. Talking about your life problems or happy moments is better face-to-face because the other person can see your emotions and expression while you are talking, which helps them understand the situation better, unlike communicating on Social media.
Another advantage of Social media is that it makes it easier for businesses to advertise their brand or products. Advertising on Social media increases brand recognition. It’s true that Social media is beneficial for businesses to advertise their company, but this doesn’t relate to my argument. My argument talks about the negative effects of Social media on teenagers, but benefits of social media for businesses doesn’t relate to tlife. This argument is irrelevant to the initial argument.
Conclusion
Taking everything into account. Social media, something that all of us use to communicate, post photos and videos, and build relationships. Nowadays, young adult and teenage internet users are more active on social media on a day-to-day basis. Teenagers are constantly active on social media, and have developed a growing dependence on it. Many teenagers grow an addiction to social media because they do not understand the adverse effects it has on their life. Teenagers are correct in thinking that social media has many advantages, however, they do not realize the adverse effects can also ravage their life.
These adverse effects include: cyberbullying, loss of real-life interaction, and depression. Social media has the potential to harm teenagers’ lives. People should use social media for the right reasons; people should not use social media for bullying someone or exposing someone online. People joke around with others on social media, but they do not understand that “joking” around can lead to people getting their feelings hurt. It can lead to depression and loneliness, which can also lead to people harming themselves. If you are addicted to social media, know that it has many negative factors that can harm, or even ruin your life. Limit your time on social media and get out into the real world.
